For it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of a man, wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than there is in a statue, has yet nevertheless a living soul in it, because of its shape; as that there is a rational soul in a changeling, because he has the outside of a rational creature, when his actions carry far less marks of reason with them, in the whole course of his life than what are to be found in many a beast.
16.

Monsters But it is the issue of rational parents, and must therefore be concluded to have a rational soul.

I know not by what logic you must so conclude.
I am sure this is a conclusion that men nowhere allow of.

For if they did, they would not make bold, as everywhere they do to destroy ill-formed and mis-shaped productions.

Ay, but these are MONSTERS.
Let them be so: what will your drivelling, unintelligent, intractable changeling be?
Shall a defect in the body make a monster; a defect in the mind (the far more noble, and, in the common phrase, the far more essential part) not?
Shall the want of a nose, or a neck, make a monster, and put such issue out of the rank of men; the want of reason and understanding, not?
This is to bring all back again to what was exploded just now: this is to place all in the shape, and to take the measure of a man only by his outside.